Golden With Brass Corners
by ohlookrandom
Summary: The athlete's tone is scathing. "You're not going to run off and leave us alone again, are you?" Derek crosses his arms. "Maybe if you actually stuck around long enough he wouldn't just have your shadow to remember you by." Jogan, before Adam's madness.


Look at me, churning out stories on Christmas break. Who am I kidding? I'm procrastinating on work... as always.

Enjoy a Jogan fic :)

Disclaimer: These three boys belong to CP Coulter and her wonderful, wonderful universe that she has created.

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><p><em>Looking for a way I can let you know,<br>But time will soon be near,  
>When I am going to take my load and go from here.<em>

"What now, J?"

Julian Larson stands in the dusty room, watching absently as dust particles filter through the sunlight. "You tell me, D."

The athlete's tone is scathing. "You're not going to run off and leave us alone _again_, are you?" Derek Siegerson crosses his arms. "_Stop running_. Maybe if you actually stuck around long enough he wouldn't just have your shadow to remember you by."

Julian turns away from Derek then, and the athlete winces when he thinks about what he's just said. "I didn't mean it that way-"

"No offense taken, D." Julian smiles easily, a practiced smirk that drives fangirls all over the world wild- but never a Stuart prefect. Logan never falls for it. "It'll be better this way, anyway. Now the both of you get to spend life together with each other."

"What did I ever do to deserve _that_?" Derek protests, flopping onto Julian's bed where a bag is being steadily filled. "Jules, seriously. Just-"

"Stay?" Julian laughs a laugh that's only evidently bitter to both him and Derek. "Why?"

"At least for me." Derek sits up straight. "You _know _who has to deal with Logan when he hits the fan."

"Let Anderson take care of it. Logan seems perfectly content to let _that _happen." Julian doesn't even fling anything into the bag when he utters his rival's name- he's that practiced at masking his anger. "D, I've done this enough times to know what I'm doing."

"Do you?" Derek folds his arms again. "_Do _you?"

"What do you want me to say?" Julian turns around to face his best friend. "Would you like me to cry?"

"I," Derek replies unflinchingly, "would like you to _care_, actually."

"Oh, but I do," Julian answers, finishing packing the last of his belongings. "That's why I'm leaving, you see."

"You're _running _away. Tell me how this means you care." Derek scowls.

Julian takes his time in replying, fiddling with the picture frame that sits beside his bed. It's golden with brass corners, a horrible mixture that is meant to look extravagant and really only comes across as simply cheap; but it is the picture that Julian cares about. It is the only thing that he would take with him, necessities aside.

He puts the picture of himself, Logan and Derek in the bag, zipping it shut. "I'm leaving," he says with finality.

"Why?" Derek demands.

"Because I would only be getting in the way."

The athlete drags a hand down his face. "At least promise me you'll come back," he attempts to extract the promise out of Julian.

His best friend smiles vaguely. "Maybe."

He leaves that night.

Derek just watches him go.

...

_There are a lot of things in my soul that need to be released,  
>But though I have to go I'll have you here with me.<em>

The filming, like Julian once wished it would, takes _forever_. He is sitting in his trailer one day, going over the script that the director has changed _yet again_ when the phone rings. He lets it ring once. Twice. Three times. Four times, and he contemplates letting it go to five when he decides to pick up. "Hello?"

"Hello, diva," Logan's voice drawls in his ear. "When are you getting back?"

Julian can feel the corners of his mouth twitch at the sound of his best friend's voice. "At the rate I'm going, never. Why? Dalton too boring for you now?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." Logan snorts. "Derek is also being a pain in the-" There's a rustle on the other end, and then it sounds like Derek has the phone.

"Jules, I'm _begging _you, come home soon." The athlete yells in pain, and Julian has an image of Derek being wrestled to the floor by an amused Logan. "Lo, get off me!"

"I hear you, Queen of Hearts," Julian says sardonically into the phone. "But try as I might, people here aren't used to my brilliance. They're having to get used to it. Might be a couple months before we finish wrapping. I demand perfection."

Logan comes back on the phone then, completely unruffled. "Is it perfection, or sheer adherence to your many far-flung and far-fetched wishes?"

"Which reminds me," Julian retorts, "they forgot to get me my magic carpet ride." He pauses, because it's been several months since he's spoken to Logan, and as such isn't quite sure of what to say to him. "How's Blaine?"

The sudden silence on the other phone tells him everything he needs to know. It's tense and strained, as though someone has dropped all three friends into a hostage situation. Logan is the first one to break the silence: "No." It's all he says. It's all Julian needs.

Julian pauses again, mulling it over in his mind. His eyes first drift to the gold and brass picture sitting at his dressing table, then to the script that is currently sitting in his lap. Tempting, tempting, the idea to go back to Dalton and resume life with the two people he sort of cared about.

Derek takes over the phone then, changing the subject like he's prone to do when he's extremely uncomfortable. "Seriously, Jules. Come home. Logan needs someone to destroy in _Call of Duty_." And Julian hears that layer in Derek's voice that he sometimes imagines only he and Derek can hear. _Come home. Logan needs you._

"Why?" Julian asks sarcastically in order to delay this conversation for later. "One of your many, many girlfriends can do it for you, can't they?"

Logan snickers, and Julian understands that someone has hit speakerphone. "Derek got shot down by all the girls he's asked out over the last couple weeks. Guess Casey did some quick talking around Dobry."

"You're losing your game, D."

"Shut it, Jules, _you _never complain when I pick up girls for you," Derek snaps.

"The only reason it was easy for you was because my reputation preceded me, D." Julian's pager buzzes, a sharp annoying sound in the quiet of the room, and Julian sighs. "I have to go. The director is paging me again."

"Try not to be a complete pig around him," Logan drawls.

Julian simply snorts and hangs up. Goodbyes aren't necessary with any of them.

He's back in Dalton in the next two weeks.

...

_Cause I'm taking memories,  
>Taking pictures in my head,<br>Of times, of peace._

And so, at the end of it all, after meeting Kurt and recognizing the tell-tale signs of Logan's persistence in attaining his target, Julian finds himself in the same predicament again, staring at an empty bag.

He's just so tired. Tired of Logan, tired of Derek's sympathetic side glances, tired of Kurt reading between his perfectly practiced rehearsed lines. Tired of watching, tired of waiting.

_ "I really think you're going to come back just to make sure he's okay." _Kurt's voice echoes in his head, and Julian sighs as he thinks about it. Because at the base of it, that was true, wasn't it?

Julian takes a deep breath, remembering the confrontation with Derek in the hallway. Time to give up…

_ "If you did, why do you even come back?" _Julian remembers Derek's scathing tone, so similar to the tone the athlete used a year ago. Derek hasn't changed. He still can't understand why Julian keeps running away from Logan, or why Logan can't get his act together.

Julian hasn't changed either. The only reason why he keeps putting his heart through the wringer is because he loves Logan too much to watch Logan struggle fruitlessly.

And Logan hasn't changed, because he's never seen Julian hurting enough times to know that he's the one causing Julian to walk away.

So it becomes the same routine for Julian, time after time. He absently dusts the bag off (not that there's much _to _dust off) and reaches automatically for the gold and brass picture frame by his bedside- but this time, his hand stops.

_Why bother, when there's nothing left to bother about_?

He drops the picture into the trash can, and the entire pile of photographs of him, Derek and Logan follow. The rest of his clothes get thrown haphazardly into the bag- it's like Julian is desperate to get out of there, even more so than before now that Derek is no longer around to hold him back.

It sounds stupid, he reasons later when he's paused by the door, but he wants to wait for five minutes- just to see if Derek will try to stop him. Julian knows that Logan will not; Logan does not care enough because he will never understand, he mutters to himself inwardly. He watches the front door, but sees no limber athlete sprinting down the road. He shrugs, resigned-

-then hears something that sounds like a _thump _from Logan's room, and spins around. There is a light on in the room, and what looks like someone moving inside. Footsteps that are brisk, footsteps that are sure of themselves. Footsteps like Logan's.

Movies begin to play in Julian's head as he stumbles towards his best friend's room, and the footsteps seem to pause in front of him. For a second, Julian imagines Logan staring through the door at him, and he imagines those green eyes boring into his, asking those questions that he desperately wishes Logan would have the sense to ask. They're almost face to face, Julian thinks, save for the door separating them.

Even the best movies can't capture Julian's paralysis as the movies of what was, what is, and what could be flash through his mind. It's like being so close, but so desperately far, he bitterly thinks.

_It will always be nothing_.

Like all the times he has stood, helpless, before Logan's door, Julian cannot bring himself to knock. There is _never going to be _a final goodbye, he reflects, because Logan is just someone he cannot bring himself to let go of. They should never have needed a goodbye.

He feels Derek's arm wrap itself around him and allows himself to be led away to the front door. Derek says nothing this time, but his grip is tight, and Julian knows that the athlete is pleading with him again. _Do you really want to do this, Jules? _

Derek, always the well-meaning idiot. Always trying to keep them together. Maybe it is best this way, Julian thinks sadly, that he leaves- now Derek will have one less burden to bear. He looks straight ahead, contemplating, weighing, calculating- all the while hoping against hope that Logan will somehow step out of his room.

It does not happen, and Julian takes a deep breath. "It will be better this way," he breathes, so softly that only Derek can hear. The irony, he allows himself to smile inwardly, because only Derek has bothered to listen all this time.

_Are you sure_? Derek's eyes seem to be asking again.

Julian nods. No promises this time. Derek does not ask him to come back, because he knows that this time Julian may never come back.

He bows his head, still saying nothing, even as his fingers grip the golden door handles of Stuart. _If that's what you want_, he sighs softly to himself.

Julian steps out, into the cold, biting air of Dalton.

Derek only watches him go.

_I'm taking memories,  
>I won't dwell on what we lost,<br>But what we'll keep.  
>We had a good thing, didn't we?<em>

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><p><em>"<em>taking memories", sam and ruby

Comments/criticism/reviews always much appreciated :) Love y'all!


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